Water is a crucial resource that, at times, may be considered a scarce resource. In many areas, especially the Southwest of the United States, local communities have to make hard choices of either supplying water for domestic consumption or supplying water to industries such as agriculture. The decision may not be easy, as communities balance their need to grow their local economies while managing scarce resources.
Reclaiming waste water and rendering the water suitable for re-use and/or disposal may ameliorate the problem of scarce water. There are many ways to clean water, but most communities rely on a few methods that combine coagulation, particle settling, filtration, and disinfection. While such wastewater treatments methods may be effective to clean common types of wastewaters, such methods may be ineffective when treating waters resulting from certain industrial processes. For example, industrial processes such as hydraulic fracturing may add toxic contaminants and toxic chemicals to wastewaters. Not properly treating contaminated wastewater may be costly to the environment.